Author: Vincent Guo
Editors: Elizabeth Li, Kevy Chen
Artist: Esther Chen
The nervous system is one of the most important parts of your body. The nervous system is how the brain communicates with the rest of your body to do what it wants. Our nervous system consists of the brain, spinal cord, and nerve cells called neurons. You use your nervous system every day–even right now, as you are reading this, your brain is using your nervous system to move your eye and relay the information you read back to the brain. This happens because the brain sends signals through your nerves to other parts of your body.
The nervous system regulates your body automatically, helping to keep your heart beating, blinking, sweating, and more–all without conscious thought. The nervous system has a bunch of receptors near the neurons for it to send the signals to, this is what allows the nervous system to relay messages super fast. For example, receptors on our tongue tell us how food tastes. If you’ve ever eaten something sugary, you recognize the sweetness because of the receptors on your tongue.
The nervous system was developed to help organisms adapt better to their environment and survive longer. Organisms are able to detect changes in their environment such as light, temperature, sound, motion, and odor, and respond quickly to these changes. For example, when it’s very hot outside, your body will respond by sweating to cool itself. Originally, our cells communicated chemically, which took a very long time. The nervous system evolved to make this communication faster and more efficient.
There are two types of nervous systems: diffuse and centralized. In the diffuse nervous system, there is no brain. Instead, neurons are distributed throughout the organism’s body, and this system is found in lower invertebrates. On the other hand, centralized nervous systems, found in higher invertebrates and vertebrates, have a brain and spinal cord. Along the spinal cord are nerve fibers that signals or impulses travel through to relay information from the brain and other parts of the body.
Our body also has chemical regulation, which uses substances called hormones. These hormones move around in our blood, activating target cells and influencing metabolism. They play roles in the growth, reproduction, and behavior of our body. While plants don't have a nervous system, they have a similar mechanism for responding to external stimuli using hormones. For instance, during germination, plants grow stems upward toward sunlight while roots grow downward into the soil. This directional response, guided by hormones called auxins, allows plants to optimize sunlight exposure for photosynthesis. Auxins diffuse into the stem tissues, chemically enabling the plant to “communicate” and grow toward light.
The nervous system plays an important aspect in our life. It is a complex yet one of the most useful systems we have. If it wasn’t for the nervous system, we wouldn’t even be alive.
Citations:
professional, Cleveland Clinic medical. “Nervous System: What Does It Do?” Cleveland
Clinic, 17 Sept. 2024, my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/21202-nervous-system.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., 25 Sept. 2024,
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